Mobb Deep - Blood Money - 2006 - Interscope
Amerikaz Nightmare seemed to leave Mobb Deep and Jive Records disenchanted with each other. So when 50 Cent came around offering them a new deal, it seemed like a good idea. And why not? G-Unit was still at the top of their game, and the Mobb was looking for some newfound relevance. To some degree this worked. Certainly a younger generation was introduced to the group thanks to G-Unit. But the end result sounds like the duo was far more strangled out of their own creativity than even on Amerikaz Nightmare. The best way to put it is that Blood Money sounds like a pretty average G-Unit album, but a mediocre Mobb Deep album. That's no surprise skimming through the liner notes. Ten of the album's sixteen tracks feature G-Unit members. Less than half are produced by Havoc. Even one of the bonus tracks is actually a 50 Cent song featuring Mobb Deep, rather than vice versa. It really comes off as a wasted partnership. There are a couple of standout tracks here, though. "Pearly Gates" is actually a great collaboration with 50 that focuses on religion. Though it's somewhat ruined by the fact that several of Prodigy's lines are edited out of the label's reluctance of the content-matter. It's baffling why they kept the edited lines instead of writing new ones. The lone Alchemist production "The Infamous" rides an awesome sample of Grandwizard Theodore that sounds far better than any beat on the album. And speaking of beats, while many of them are paint-by-numbers G-Unit, "Creep" is borderline annoying. Fans of either group will be curious to hear this one. And ultimately it's not a terrible album. It's just definitely not up to the greatness that Mobb Deep is capable of.
Jay-Z - International Gangster - 2008 - Starz Music
Considering American Gangster received an official acapella release (much like The Black Album), it's not shocking that bootleg remix albums will pop up. This one doesn't seem to have a whole lot of reason to exist, however. Which is not to say that the remixes are bad. They're all perfectly fine. But the original versions are just so good. And oddly, a lot of the remixes here seem to use the same pallet of sounds - 70's organs, jazz-funk guitars, and the likes. So the result comes off as lesser versions of similar songs. In fairness, a couple step out of that mold slightly. "Hello Brooklyn" actually sounds a lot more like the rest of the album than it did on American Gangster proper, for instance. For the most part this album is a decent listen, though there are some perplexing choices made. For instance - and I know this is nit-picky, but if you're going to keep Jay's adlibs about riding out the horns ("Roc Boys"), then you should probably have some horns on the backing track, less it just makes no sense. Also, there are five bonus tracks, literally listed as "Bonus 1" through "Bonus 5," that as far as I can tell are nothing but the first five songs on the album played over again. I have no idea. But I will give Big Mike props for choosing to not yell DJ drops over all the tracks. That at least makes it feel more like an album than a mixtape. Ultimately this is a serviceable remix project, but not one that would earn repeated listens.